A bunch of days of doing stuff and acting mostly like a human, even if I had to go to bed at lunch time yesterday and miss much of the snow day, so today my body has finally declared its rage at overspending of my spoons.
I can barely stand and am just shaking and wobbling.
I have the best life....
Yesterday I hung out with Tavendale a bit while he was in town and partially broke my new rainbow umbrella that Alana sent me a few weeks back.
Last night I did not sleep out of anxiety about the biopsy I was scheduled for this morning and out of ongoing discomfort and regret about Sunday's bad choices (or more how little I had choices and how much I let someone bulldoze me after I had said I wasn't keen).
So tired and grumpy I walked in for my biopsy through as near as Dunedin gets to white-out conditions. So much snow falling only two days after I very nearly changed to my summer weight duvet.
I got rather snowed on, and it was occasionally awkwardly slippery and unpleasant. I got to the place and found out that while my specialist had booked me in, he'd not actually filed the paperwork so the receptionist had to hunt him down on the phone and get him to fax the form. Fortunately the appointment after me had cancelled because of the snow so they still had time to biopsy me once the paperwork came through.
After the first needle the pathologist apologised that it was not a cyst, so she would not be able to drain it and send me off less lumpy. Other than it not being a cyst all she could tell me was it was attached to my thyroid, for clearer notions of what it is I shall have to wait for results and then my specialist deciding what I need told.
Then I came home and have been in bed, mostly split between reading and dozing, since.
Tuesday, I had an OT appointment where I agreed to try to walk more. Then went to the writing group to gossip, vaguely refer to our various novel projects and then gossip some more. And then I went Firmin for Nando's with Simon and Joe. Then we all watched the Leader's Debate together and got angry at how bias toward Judith Collins the filming was.
Wednesday, I went to roleplaying in the evening. I don't recall if I did anything else but have a vague feeling I walked somewhere. Yup, my phone thinks I walked 1.7km while carrying it, so I went somewhere.....
Thursday, I think I may have stayed home and just watched YouTube animated history videos while pretending that I was learning.
Friday, I went to town and had delicious lunch from Kenko with Dalton, to whom I lent my Dr Horrible DVD as he had not seen it - which can not be allowed. As the OT has me paying attention to my walking it was a 7.8km day, hanging out with Dalton in town for a bit but not doing anything too exciting.
Yesterday, I went to the Duke of Wellington to catch up with Tavendale and a couple of his friends, as he was down on flights booked for the cancelled Amanda Palmer concert. Then dashed home to meet my family (as dad had come down for the weekend) and go to the new middle eastern restaurant on Filleul St, alsultan. I ordered poorly and got a disappointing meal that would have been better and cheaper from a turkish place, but Ev got something that looked pretty awesome. So the bad is somewhat mine.
Today....
Today, I made bad choices.
I took my super gay umbrella into the rain to go meet someone I have been chatting to for a while for brunch. The plans was Perc, but it was full so we went to the cafe next door. I got a good sandwich.
Then we went for a walk and chat, leading to having walked 14.8km today by my phone's count. it also led to being rather sunburnt, because the weather changes more than expected and I felt too weird using an umbrella to block sun.
And then the day got away from me. A meeting that was purely an as friends thing rapidly shifted under me and I may now be sort of dating someone. Someone I never really consented to anything going that direction with. I am very uncertain how I feel about it. Especially as he is another guy who claimed to have (a lot of) trouble understanding my accent. Why can't any kiwis like me ever?
Also, I now have a large hicky on my neck only two days before the neck biopsy I am booked in for. Nurses shall mock me.
On Wednesday night I had D&D. It is good to human. The ride there had been early so I hung out at Lisa's house a bit first and watched the more likeable of her cat's display its malice.
Thursday..... I don't recall at all. I was about to sat I didn't leave the house but am now very unsure. I think I didn't leave the house.
Yes, checked. Didn't leave the house. Got Formosa Delight delivery for dinner, it was fantastic but had more cauliflower than I could handle. It ended badly.
Friday I went for a walk and getting of lunch with Midget, and picked her spawn up after school (sometimes I am almost an acceptable fairy godfather). Then in the evening I hung out with Firmin for a bit so we could bother pretend to be functional humans, before I cooked up the instant meal enchiladas from Johnny's Southern Kitchen that Carla had bought for me and dropped off earlier.
On Saturday evening, after a day of YouTube and semi-playing My Time in Portia, I went out for dinner with my dad and trans-sister. We went to Robbie's in South Dunedin which is now called something else. Maybe Rope and Twine.
Sunday was a PJ day, though my mother did come by to drop off my grandmother's TV (because my TV is dying and it is identical to my grandmothers, also meaning that I have legs that will fit it - as the rest home had taken them off and put it on a wall brace. So I needed a TV, and they had one that was useless for anyone else. In the process I found out why my childhood home is being sold - bad tenants have made the whole thing unpleasant for my mother's boyfriend, and with the tightening of the renter protection laws having bad tenants is now even more of an issue.
Today I had sorted lunch plans for before the general medicine hospital appointment that I suspected would come to nothing. So I met Claire for a very nice lunch at Harry's Kitchen while we gossiped about the roleplayers that we both mostly fail to properly socialise with and feel alienated from - because reasons. I really like Katsu Curry on noodles. I also had really missed Claire's face, I have been terrible at keeping in touch. I must try harder. And she understands my crazy so well
Then the appointment.
It started exactly as expected, running through how the only test results that were noteworthy was the HbA1c that my GP has already dealt with. Then the unhelpful conversation about my temperature spikes and the chest pain - which lead to nothing more than being told I would get TB tests just to make sure but otherwise I was probably just going to have to suck it up. As we were finishing up he asked if there was anything else I wanted to check on, and I said just something that is probably more a GP thing, but my necks gets weird and tight on the right. So he gloved up and squeezed and prodded, then got me water so I could more effectively swallow a bunch while he felt my throat.
End result of this is that I am now getting referrals for CT scan and biopsy. Turns out thing I was ignoring as not really a thing may actually be a pretty serious thing. I though the asymmetry was just a muscle being tight and weird. Instead the doctor referred to it as a "large mass".
He seemed a little annoyed that he'd not found it the first time I was there, like I had been actively concealing it.
So that happened.
I put on pants today and went to writing group. This came after a lunch of leftover vegetable chow mein (last night I walked into South Dunedin for regular takeaways - maybe for the first (though I probably have forgotten the first and it is actually the second) time since COVID struck. SARS-CoV-2 has shifted my eating habits significantly toward deliveries and eating probably even less healthily.
Showering two days in a row (and it will be three as I have plans tomorrow). I am almost seeming like a human.
While at writing group I realised the three semi-novels I have bouncing around in my head all have a possession element. In fact they are all a bit similar. Me before I was sick had novels about metamorphosis bouncing around in my head going nowhere but it seems that post-getting-sick the stories I have had floating around for the past decade have all leaned heavily toward "outside force enters the protagonist uninvited, bringing 'genre' circumstances but generally ruining the protagonists life".
This may say a lit about where my brain is in relation to my illness.
At least the novels have different styles of unwanted invasion. They are even different in genre, somewhat. Only the one that least buzzes around in my head is pure urban fantasy. The only I wrote over twenty thousand words of the year before Shitlord entered my life is pointing in the direction of magic realism. The third, which may be the loudest in my head, weirdly might actually be magic realism rather than fantasy while also being the only one that would feature a dragon.... because reasons.
It is almost like I went from not being comfortable with the person I was to being frustrated at a thing being done to me without my consent.
I should stop picking the solar keratosis off my forehead and go make some dinner.
With how not great I was feeling on Wednesday night it is probably handy that my D&D game had been cancelled another week running.
Though means I am humaning less than I ought.
Thursday was the one year mark, so I sulked about it but put some effort into pretending that I wasn't. I went for lunch with Oli and think I successfully didn't mention the personal significance of the day at all. In the eveing my dad took me and Ev for dinner at Great Taste and led to our group decision to never eat there ever again. I decision we should have made years ago. It was awful.
Friday.... I don't think I got out of my PJs. I don't remember anything of Friday at all. I assume it happened. Other people would comment if it hadn't.
Wait, Friday was when I got a new umbrella delivered. A gift from Alana, sent through some Asian website so it came wrapped in Chinese postage information with nothing in roman characters except for my name and address.
Saturday I went for lunch to celebrate Ev's birthday (not actually on her birthday, but the closest we could have it before Dad left town). We got kebabs and parked by the beach to eat them. And I gave Ev the random and pointless presents I had bought her.
Yesterday was a PJ day. Finally finishing, many years late, the North American remake of Being Human. I thought the UK one had got dumb in later seasons but it had nothing on the stupidity of the remake. The only advantage the remake has is that it retained its cast better (and has a "better looking" cast, i.e. all American actor looking and no British character-ness). So yeah, people should stick to the British Being Human.
Today have been watching Away, a new Netflix show that I doubt will be remembered but is a decent watch and has space. And watching a neighbours cat hunting mice in the long grass on Steep street. It is comedy gold because of the ginger and white floof bouncing stupidly up out of the grass in the most awkward of pounces.
Last night I had worse than usual night sweats. But that is just part of my life this year.
After whining about the singleness anniversary tomorrow (well, sort of), my intermittent fever has hit worse than usual. My ears are so hot that it hurts. But my oral temperature is only coming in at 37 which should be mostly fine (is a little high for an oral recording but not enough to worry about) and does not explain why my ears and the sides of my head are so hot.
My body is STUPID.
As of tomorrow I will have been single for a year.
It has been a pretty shit year, but one in which I have said "I've been single too long" with much, much less frequency than I caught myself saying it and then having to correct myself in the years before.
I am glad to have that arsehole out of my life - but worry a little about how little interest I have in ever letting another human that close.
Society says I am supposed to want romance, and I do rather fear eternal loneliness. But.....
Being single and not remotely mingling has left my less depressed than I was, I think. But maybe more sad.
And this year of COVID has been pretty lonely, but I persist.
I felt like singing yesterday. Something I used to very much enjoy. Turns out that currently it just makes me chest hurt so VERY much. Like something in my lung was ripping, though I realise it is almost certainly just pulling.
After days of not leaving the house I had an OT appointment that I didn't really want this morning. Wellsouth and my GP's office are upping their attempts at 'preventative medicine'. As usual such a thing stated off as skinny young girls fat shaming me and then losing all the wind from their sails when I explain that the chronic health problems nothing to do with weight are the actual problem and the weight came after they did. It was all just awkward.
After that my dad took me for some groceries before I pottered around at home for a while. Then dinner out with Dad and Ev, at Shitlord's work but he wasn't there so far as I know, and a movie, The New Mutants. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it is objectively bad with so many inconsistencies and plot holes.
I have the flat inspection that was cancelled the other week because of Level 2 alert on tomorrow instead, even though it is still COVID Level 2.
This time my lack of making any effort in intentional.
Today the migraine is featuring the sensation of recurring sharp jabbing sensations. Like a scalpel stabbing in unpredictably.
The pain is sharp enough and catching me by surprise that I have found myself yelping with it.
It is not a good day to be me.
Hopefully this is in English. My brain is finding everything hard so I am unconvinced that I am not spouting pure gibberish. Though I see no red underlining, so I may be doing better than I think. Reading is hard - which makes it a dumb time to be writing.
Tuesday night I left the house, went for dinner with Simon, Joe and Firmin. Nandos as is somewhat our usual. Then back to Simon and Joe's to watch a movie. We watched that Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson one about being con-artists. I saw it when it was new, but it was pleasant and low brow.
My Wednesday plans were cancelled, so it copied Monday by being a day where I stayed in my PJs and did nothing much. I did nothing my weird intermittent fever was flaring up particularly bad on Wednesday.
Thursday morning I had to get up early for a hospital retinal photography appointment. In the evening I went for dinner with my dad and brother after my dad arrived back in town for a few days.
Friday morning was again an early start for the dentist. So a second night of mostly not sleeping out of anxiety that I'd sleep through my appointment. I hate my brain.
Appointment went fine, got the filling that fell out while I was brushing my teeth a couple of months back replaced. All went smoothly, and while they drilled in more than I expected they did it all without anaesthesia. I much prefer avoiding a numb face. After which I had lunch with Oli before pottering home to get back in to PJs and stay that way ever since.
Last night I watched the Canada's Drag Race final and the queen who was my favourite from the first episode won, which pleased me.
Today I was trying out a new game and rather enjoying it until my dying computer froze and the most recent save had lost hours of effort. So I think I shall leave it.
